STEK

This site-specific performance depicts the changing DNA of a working-class neighbourhood. It tells about feeling alienated in your own backyard. About us and them, like knows like, about Catholics and communists.

Residents take you on a journey to five intimate performances staged on different sites in the Slachthuisbuurt (abattoir neighbourhood). From an old haberdashery you walk to a rear third floor apartment and then continue on to the abattoir. You meet Siem Kossen, who as a small boy delivered meat for men who were too drunk to do their job and later made this his profession by running a successful transport company. A boarder from Twente, a region in the eastern of Holland, who came here to work for the railways in the 1950s, relates how he was teased because of his country roots.  A young Moroccan woman bids you welcome with tea and Rai music and tells you how she misses her family. Animated commentary from local residents enlivens the tour.

STEK is the theatrical finale of the Verhalenkeuken (Story Kitchen). Since October 2008, Titia Bouwmeester collaborates with the primary school De Talenten and the DOCK welfare organization in realizing this successful community art project. The three organizations are the driving force behind a new community centre. They sowed the seeds that allow new forms of community spirit to blossom.